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      At P.S.G., Kylian Mbappé Has to Go

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      Mbappé is a generational talent who deserves a bigger stage on a weekly basis than the one Paris St.-Germain can offer.Only one player escaped the ire of the Parc des Princes. Paris St.-Germain’s fans whistled and jeered every time Lionel Messi touched the ball. They howled and crowed at the sight of a wayward shot from Neymar. There was no allowance in their anger for reputation, no discrimination by status. It encompassed mortal and immortal alike.The lone exception, during last weekend’s routine win against Bordeaux, was Kylian Mbappé. There was no romance behind his pardon. He was not excused because he is a boy from the French capital’s banlieues, an identifiably Parisian superstar, a local kid made good. All of those terms — except perhaps superstar — apply to the defender Presnel Kimpembe, too, but the fans deemed him as guilty as everyone else.Nor was it related to performance. Mbappé, almost alone, had emerged with credit from P.S.G.’s elimination from the Champions League at the hands of Real Madrid. He had scored once, and seen two goals ruled out for offside. He had gleamed under the bright lights of the Santiago Bernabéu. He had almost single-handedly carried Mauricio Pochettino’s team to the quarterfinals. His brilliance, though, has not stopped P.S.G.’s ultras targeting him before.It was, instead, a rather more cynical calculation that ensured Mbappé’s reprieve. The 23-year-old forward’s contract at P.S.G. expires at the end of the season. Though it has long been assumed he would move to Madrid this summer, P.S.G. has not yet given up hope of changing his mind. Reports have suggested that it might be willing to pay him as much as $28 million a year to stay.P.S.G.’s ultras, as a statement on their protests explained, might despair of the way their club is run. They might believe its executives are more concerned with releasing special-edition jerseys and gathering superstars to sell them than building a coherent team. They might abhor the way the team seems to regard Ligue 1 as little more than a training exercise.But they are no fools. They might, in fact, have a rather better idea of how to construct a squad than the people charged with running their club. They understand that Mbappé is the sort of generational talent that should be at the very center of P.S.G.’s planning, rather than an afterthought to the apparently arbitrary acquisition of icons. They had no intention whatsoever of accelerating his departure.Sergio Perez/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is likely, of course, to prove futile. If Mbappé could not be convinced to sign a new contract before the last couple of weeks, nothing that has happened since then to make the idea of extending his stay more appealing.The defeat to Real Madrid — the one which, once again, effectively ensured that the last meaningful game of his season took place in March — was bad enough, but the sight and the sound of the Parc des Princes in open mutiny against P.S.G.’s Qatari backers may well have been worse.The protest itself, of course, was nothing especially remarkable. There is an inherent tension scored into P.S.G.’s very being: the schism between what the club is to its hierarchy and to its fans existed long before the arrival, a little more than a decade ago, of Qatar Sports Investments.Almost from the moment of its founding, P.S.G. has played a dual role. To its owners and executives, it was always an expression of the city’s identity as they saw it. The haute couture designer Daniel Hechter was one of its early presidents; he introduced the famous blue, red and white jersey that the club seems absolutely determined to wear as little as possible. To them, P.S.G. was a fashion brand, an extension of the theater and the cinema and the discothèque.For its fans, it was an expression of the city’s identity, too, but as they knew it. Drawn not so much from the exclusive arrondissements inside the périphérique but the sprawling suburbs beyond, they saw in P.S.G. something far grittier, far weightier, far more reflective of their lives.That tension is now no longer unique — if it ever was — to P.S.G. Countless clubs across Europe are reckoning with the same rift, the sense of alienation that has settled on fans as their clubs have been bought out and taken over and turned into something they do not quite recognize.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is, in many ways, the defining theme of modern soccer. The most egregious examples, of course, are the clubs that have been co-opted by forces that have only a tangential interest in sport: not just P.S.G., but Manchester City and Newcastle United and, most chaotically of all, Chelsea. Venerable and beloved teams that have been appropriated by states and oligarchs and princelings for their own ends.But it holds true elsewhere. It is the root of the sickness that has come to afflict Manchester United, another team playing the role of final landing spot for an idol resisting the dying of the light. The priorities of the Glazer family, the club’s owners, are effectively unrelated to the demands of the fans: performance on the field matters only so much as it affects performance off it. As long as the money keeps rolling, first and fourth in the Premier League look much the same.It is the problem that has beset Barcelona, where successive presidential regimes have focused not on maintaining the philosophy that made the club the defining team of an era, but on exploiting its brand, and Real Madrid, where the defining rationale behind any decision is the perpetuation of Florentino Pérez’s power. It is the issue that allows a host of teams to be happy to survive in the Premier League, greedily consuming the lucrative installments from the division’s television deals rather than, you know, trying to win something.That, alone, would not be enough to convince Mbappé to leave. No matter where he plays, he is likely to spend his career at a club where the interests of the owners and the fans markedly diverge. That, sadly, is the reality of modern soccer.Far more significant, in all likelihood, was the precise content of the ultras’ complaints. Had Mbappé read the statement issued to explain the protests, he would doubtless have agreed with the gist of it. P.S.G. is a fundamentally unserious sporting project. Its team is unbalanced, ill-conceived, undisciplined. Its season does tend to rest on a handful of games, two at the fewest, seven at the most, in the Champions League.And that leaves him, ultimately, with no choice. To fulfill his talent, Mbappé has to leave. He has already won a World Cup, and a suite of French championships. The sheer mass of money available to P.S.G. means the club will, at some point, inevitably win the Champions League.But while he might be able to win all of the trophies he desires in Paris, a career spent trying to impose some logic on a squad that possesses none of it would leave Mbappé ignorant to what he might have been, to what he might have become at a club with a clear vision, and playing for a coach, as the ultras put it, who is the final decision maker.That is not the only consideration. There is a more commercial factor, too. Ligue 1 does not warrant its reputation as a “farmer’s league” — other than in the sense that it is home to the sport’s most fertile crop of talent — but Mbappé needs only to look at Messi for proof of the effect it has on a player’s profile.Messi has not entirely disappeared from view since moving to Paris last summer. His performances are still picked over; the few highlights he has offered in Ligue 1 continue to flood social media. But most weekends, far fewer people watch him play than they did while he was at Barcelona. There are no clásicos that can be considered appointment viewing; there are only his excursions in the Champions League.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt 34, that is tolerable for Messi. He is already more famous than almost anyone else on the planet. His legacy — for all the pointless squabbling about whether the anticlimax of his time in Paris is greater than that of Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford — is secure.Mbappé does not, yet, have that privilege. He cannot afford to float into soccer’s consciousness half a dozen times a year. He deserves more than to be an occasional visitor to the sport’s top table. That is all he can be at P.S.G., at a club where the season — to the casual viewer — only begins in February.In Spain, in England, he would not be front and center a few times a year. He would be the main event almost every week. That is not something P.S.G. can offer, no matter how much it can pay him.Last weekend, as the bile rained down on the Parc des Princes, Mbappé alone was excused. Even in their rage, the club’s fans recognized that he did not warrant that treatment. Mbappé, they know, deserves better. That silence will not make him stay. If anything, it proves that he has to leave.Awkward QuestionsEddie Howe would rather not talk about Saudi Arabia, thank you very much.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThree times in the course of a single week, searching questions over the human rights record of Saudi Arabia have been directed at the rather unlikely figure of Eddie Howe, a 44-year-old London Times reader from Amersham, Buckinghamshire.On the face of it, of course, this is slightly absurd. Eddie Howe is not a respected authority on Saudi domestic policy. He has no particular insight into the kingdom’s judicial system. There is no more reason to ask him about the execution of 81 people in a single day than there is to seek out the thoughts of Jon Bon Jovi, or Clifford The Big Red Dog.He has made that point, several times, meeting the questions with a straight bat. His job, he has said, is to know about soccer. “It’s what I know,” he said. “As soon as I deviate from that into an area where I don’t feel qualified to have a huge opinion, I go into dangerous ground.” It is a sensible approach: There is no little merit in the maxim that it is better to maintain silence and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.It is not, though, enough, not for someone in Howe’s position. He is employed as manager of Newcastle United, a soccer team that is owned by an entity that is in no way linked, despite all of the links, to the Saudi state. He took that position willingly, knowing full well who his employers would be, and having had ample time to read up on them.That he chose to take the post is up to him, of course — his own morality is his own business — but he can hardly be outraged that his decision is being scrutinized.The noise you have heard in Britain, again and again, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the sound of scales falling precipitously from eyes. Lawmakers have made it clear that the suite of P.R. companies, law firms and so-called “reputation managers” in London who have grown rich and fat from fees from Russian oligarchs over the last 20 years are going to have to think long and hard about where their money comes from. Some, it has been suggested, could yet be the subject of sanctions.There is absolutely no reason soccer should be any different. Whatever pretense there was about the “projects” at Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester City now seems not just naïve but actively damaging. It is absolutely fine if people decide they want to be part of them anyway. But they should expect to be asked to show their work.Champions League DrawFriday’s Champions League quarterfinal draw matched last year’s finalists, Chelsea and Manchester City, against Spanish opponents.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCorrespondenceMore than one person has been in touch over the last week to raise what is, I think, an important question. “Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have committed unimaginable horrors in Yemen,” Ramzi Kawar wrote. “When will Newcastle and Manchester City get the same treatment as Chelsea?”Robert Campbell took a slightly different approach. In light of the sanctioning of Roman Abramovich and its subsequent impact at Chelsea, he asked, “Why are the no knock-on discussions of Manchester City, whose (state) owners have not uttered a critical peep about the Russian invasion and who are now happily and lucratively harboring Russian oligarchs and their super yachts?”The easiest response to this is to point out that there has, over the last year, been a whole welter of negative coverage of Saudi Arabia’s investment in Newcastle, including multiple editions of this newsletter. It is true that the motivation behind Abu Dhabi’s transformation of Manchester City was, for a while, overlooked. But if you feel it is not mentioned enough these days, I can introduce you to a small but startlingly bellicose contingent of Manchester City fans who feel differently.Both emails, though, hit upon an important point, and something that soccer will have to reckon with eventually. Where, precisely, do we draw the line? Abramovich has now been disqualified as a director of a club because of his apparent links to the Russian regime. Why does that not apply to Saudi Arabia, or to the U.A.E.?That brings us to a question from Jon Phillips. “Of the 20 Premier League teams, whose owners are most pure of heart? Who isn’t backed somehow, somewhere, by an oligarch, a nation state, a less than savory character? Who would a neutral with a social, political and ethical conscience, support?”This has been raised frequently in the last few weeks, largely in bad faith. It is wielded as a weapon by those who believe Chelsea, Everton, Manchester City and Newcastle are being picked on by an old and self-important elite that has infiltrated the news media. Everyone, the thinking goes, is — deep down — as bad as each other.Believing that requires an impressive amount of equivocation. It relies on the assumption that donating to a political party is the same as being a government, or that a sponsor and the ownership of a team are the same thing, or that — as suggested in one British newspaper this week — making some crass, sexist comments in the 1990s or not investing enough in the playing squad is the moral equivalent of complicity in a brutal, murderous autocracy.If you recognize that not all of those things are the same, that malignance can be measured in degrees, there are plenty of teams. Norwich City, owned by a beloved television chef, is the obvious answer, but there are many more whose benefactors are basically ethically neutral: Brentford and Brighton (if you don’t mind people being good at gambling), Leeds United, Aston Villa, Watford, Crystal Palace, possibly even Tottenham. Their owners may not be perfect, of course, but that is a very different bar.That’s all for this week. Details of why all of those clubs are inherently evil are welcome at askrory@nytimes.com. The aforementioned Manchester City fans will already be swarming to Twitter to decry this very obvious example of media bias. If you missed this week’s episode of European Nights, with me and Roger Bennett of Men In Blazers, you may enjoy it, even though you know all the scores.Have a great weekend,Rory More

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      Real Madrid Rally Leaves P.S.G. Chasing Goals and Ghosts

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      Karim Benzema’s second-half hat trick delivered a familiar disappointment to a star-studded French champion.MADRID — Karim Benzema could not have known, not consciously, what he was doing. It all happened too quickly, too chaotically, to be anything other than instinctual. He was standing on the edge of the Paris St.-Germain box. The ball slipped through a thicket of players. It was at his feet. He jabbed out a foot, a flash of movement, a tic, a twitch. And then everything melted around him.Benzema raced off to the corner of the Santiago Bernabéu, its remodeling still a work in progress, where the new is slowly emerging from the old. His Real Madrid teammates sprinted from all directions to join him, to swarm him, to swallow him. David Alaba grabbed a plastic folding chair and brandished it above his head. The stands above writhed and shook, the crowd rendered delirious by witnessing the impossible.Not quite 20 minutes earlier, Real Madrid had been out of the Champions League. As good as gone, anyway. The team that prides itself as the Kings of Europe — as a banner unfurled by the club’s ultras before the game put it — looked old and tired, caught in the megawatt glare of P.S.G.’s star power.It was not just that Kylian Mbappé had scored, extending the French side’s lead to two goals on aggregate; it was that he had seen two more disallowed for offside, one of them the sort of moment only the true greats can conjure, somehow leaving Thibaut Courtois, Real Madrid’s goalkeeper, sprawling on the grass despite not even touching the ball.Mbappé’s every move flickered with menace, fizzed with energy. Éder Militao, the defender tasked with shadowing him, is no slouch, but he had spent much of the evening heaving for air, staring at the Frenchman’s heels. Neymar, too, was starting to drift and to dance, picking holes and pulling strings. For an hour, one team looked like the future, and the other like the past.The Bernabéu sensed it, too. Half the stadium remains scarred by engineering work, but the club had found a way to cram in 61,000 fans, its largest crowd in two years. They had gathered hours beforehand, lighting flares and throwing firecrackers on the streets running from the Paseo de la Castellana, bravado erasing the doubts and the fears.Has Kylian Mbappé played his last Champions League match for P.S.G.?Javier Soriano/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThey had found it within themselves to applaud Mbappé when his name was announced — they might be seeing more of him, after all — but this was not what they had come to see. Real Madrid is not supposed to be the foil for someone else’s exhibition. The grumbles and the groans, muted at first, grew louder with every P.S.G. pass.And then, from nowhere, everything changed. Gianluigi Donnarumma dawdled on the ball; Benzema shoved him aside. The ball fell to Vinicius Junior, who returned it to Benzema, a few yards from goal. Suddenly, Real Madrid had a glimmer. In this competition, a glimmer is all anyone needs.The knockout stages of the Champions League have, in recent years, made a habit of producing the unthinkable; it happens so frequently now that the only conclusion is that the spectacular is hard-wired into the competition’s underlying code. Through some combination of factors — the high stakes, pressure and critical mass of talent — it has become the most fertile breeding ground imaginable for the spectacular.Nobody is immune. It has happened to Ajax, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid itself over the years. But whether it is through correlation or causation, it does seem to happen to both Paris St.-Germain, and to Lionel Messi, rather more than might be expected.For P.S.G., that first goal from Benzema carried with it an echo of the failures that have marred its desperate, expensive attempts to win this competition: the ransacking of the Parc des Princes by Manchester United and, most of all, the 6-1 defeat to Barcelona in 2017, the game the club has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to forget.P.S.G., a Champions League finalist in 2020 and a semifinalist last season, will miss out on the trophy it covets most again.Javier Soriano/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMessi, too, seemed as if he had seen a ghost. He was present, after all, for Barcelona’s collapses in Rome in 2018 and at Anfield in 2019; he was on the field the day the greatest club team in history succumbed, 8-2, to Bayern Munich in 2020. He had been powerless, then, and he seemed powerless now.He had, in truth, been a peripheral figure for much of the game, flickering to life only occasionally, overshadowed even when P.S.G. ran rampant by the vibrancy and the youthfulness of Mbappé. As soon as Real Madrid scored and the Bernabéu roared, though, he seemed to sink from view completely, a callow and diminished figure, the greatest force of agency soccer has ever seen apparently resigned to his fate.When it came, it hit him, and his teammates, like a wave, shifting the ground from beneath their feet in the space of no more than 120 seconds. Luka Modric, a veteran raging more effectively against the dying of the light, fed Benzema, who smuggled the ball past Donnarumma, drawing Madrid level on aggregate.The noise from the celebrations was still rattling around the Bernabéu when the ball broke for Benzema and he jabbed out a foot and he raced away, arms outstretched, into a squirming mass of white. Benzema’s third goal came two minutes after his second.Susana Vera/ReutersThere was, even then, still time for P.S.G., for the most expensive squad in the history of soccer to find a goal against a team that it had pinned against the ropes only a few minutes earlier, but it almost seemed too distressed, too dazed, to believe it.Mbappé, Neymar and Messi, that strike force of the best there was, the best there is and the best there might yet be, prowled the field forlorn. They knew how this ended: with lingering shots of them, heads bowed, eyes haunted, staring at the ground or gazing into the middle distance. By the time the final whistle blew, as Real Madrid’s players collapsed onto their backs and P.S.G.’s crumpled to their knees, Messi was nowhere to be seen. He had slipped from the field without a glance, without a word. It was possible, in the bedlam, to forget he had ever been there at all. More

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      Champions League Repeats Its Draw After a ‘Technical Problem’

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      A buzzed-about round of 16 matchup between Manchester United and Paris St.-Germain was the result of a mistake. P.S.G. will face Real Madrid instead.They drew the Champions League round of 16 on Monday, and set up a mouthwatering match between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.Then they drew it again, and that match was gone.A “technical problem” meant that the Champions League was redrawn, leading to mostly new matchups — easier for some, harder for others — and shattering fans’ dreams of Paris St.-Germain vs. Manchester United.After the initial draw, fans and teams began posting on social media hyping the matchups. But in the end, only one of those games will happen. Three hours later, officials reconvened to draw the teams again.In the initial draw, Manchester United was matched with Villarreal. But those teams had met in the group stage, so a new name was pulled, giving Villarreal a match against Manchester City instead.At that point, the ball with United’s name in it should have been put back in the bowl. That did not appear to happen, so United did not have a chance to be drawn against the next team, Atlético Madrid. The rest of the names were pulled, and the draw appeared to be concluded.But as a result of the slip-up, UEFA, the European governing body, decided the fairest course was to pull all 16 teams again.UEFA was happy to try to shift the blame for the goof, saying: “Following a technical problem with the software of an external service provider that instructs the officials as to which teams are eligible to play each other, a material error occurred in the draw for the UEFA Champions League round of 16.”After the redraw, Chelsea wound up drawn against Lille, just as they had in the first draw. The other seven matchups were different however: Salzberg-Bayern, Sporting Lisbon-Manchester City, Benfica-Ajax, Atlético Madrid-Manchester United, Villarreal-Juventus, Inter Milan-Liverpool, and P.S.G.-Real Madrid.The team that might be unhappiest with the new draw is Real Madrid, which started with a very winnable match against Benfica, and wound up playing the star-studded lineup of P.S.G. Still, Real leads the Spanish league comfortably and would seem to have every chance to come away with a win.Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, who started with a match against Villarreal and ended with one against Sporting, said: “It was a mistake. These things can happen, to managers, players and UEFA too. It is fair. It would be a mistake not to repeat, there would suspicions.”Matchups in the second-tier Europa League tournament include Barcelona, making an unaccustomed appearance after finishing third in its Champions League group, against Napoli and Porto vs. Lazio.In the new third-tier tournament, the Conference League, with a more eclectic mix of clubs, Leicester City will take on Randers of Denmark. Teams from Israel, Azerbaijan and Norway are also in the last 16.Each of those tournaments was drawn just once. So far. More

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      What Happened in the P.S.G. Attack?

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      The assault of a top women’s player made headlines, with masked men, a metal bar and the arrest of a teammate. But weeks later, new details suggest the original story might have been wrong.VERSAILLES, France — It was dark by the time Aminata Diallo stepped through the concrete arch of the Hôtel de Police and onto the sidewalk outside. It had been about 36 hours since officers had banged on her apartment door, rousing her from sleep and taking her into custody.Now released and scrolling through the hundreds of messages she had missed, Diallo, a midfielder for the French soccer team Paris St.-Germain, was stunned by what she saw. Little known only days earlier beyond the cloistered world of French women’s soccer, her name was suddenly headline news around the world.Diallo, the news reports said, was the player who had been driving the car last month when one of her teammates was pulled from the passenger seat by a masked man and assaulted. Diallo, the reports said, was the one who had been unharmed as her friend and teammate Kheira Hamraoui was beaten with an iron bar. And Diallo was the player now being questioned not as a witness but as a possible suspect in what the police had suggested was an orchestrated attack.The story, with its hints of sporting jealousy, its echoes of Tonya Harding and its links to Paris St.-Germain, the reigning French champion and one of the richest soccer clubs in the world, quickly spread far and wide.But as details emerge — about marital infidelity; about accusations implicating other members of the team; about reports of menacing phone calls to players disparaging the victim before she was attacked — that initial story has been turned on its head.And now no one is sure what, or whom, to believe.A Case in LimboAminata Diallo, confident the police were mistaken in detaining her, declined a lawyer during questioning.Loic Baratoux/Abaca/Sipa USA, via AP ImagesMore than three weeks have passed since Diallo, 26, walked out of the police station in Versailles, released after two days of interviews and a night in a tiny, foul-smelling cell. The investigation continues, but the police appear to be no closer to figuring out what, or who, was behind the attack on Nov. 4 on a dark street in the Paris suburb of Chatou.A few things are undisputed. Hamraoui, 31, was the victim of a serious crime. Diallo was questioned and released. None of the attackers have been identified. No weapon has been recovered. And no one has been charged with a crime.But in reporting about the tumultuous weeks since the attack, The New York Times also learned that Hamraoui has at times suggested other people with links to the club, including at least two other teammates, may have been involved in her assault; that while P.S.G. kept Diallo and Hamraoui training apart from the team, and from each other, for weeks, a scheduling mistake led to one interaction in which sharp words were exchanged; and that while the police released Diallo without filing charges, they have declined to clear her of suspicion and have retained her two cellphones and laptop.The collateral damage of the incident, meanwhile, continues to grow. Diallo and Hamraoui had their names smeared and their careers disrupted. The locker room harmony at P.S.G. has been shattered, hobbling the trophy ambitions of one of Europe’s best teams. And the marriage of a French soccer hero drawn into the case has collapsed; his wife released a statement saying she would seek a divorce after, her lawyer claimed, he had admitted to her that he had been having an extramarital affair with Hamraoui.Kheira Hamraoui in August. She and Diallo vacationed together and were teammates with Paris St.-Germain and France’s national team.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesThe Times collected information on the attack, and its aftermath, by interviewing nearly a dozen people with direct knowledge of the principals, the assault and the days that followed, including friends, relatives and associates of the players; the players’ lawyers; P.S.G. insiders; and the police.Many of those interviewed sought to rebut the story’s existing narrative of jealousy and betrayal, and nearly all agreed to speak only if they were not quoted by name, given the sensitivity of the case.Yet the path forward appears as complicated as the present: Hamraoui met with the police again last week, and Diallo most likely faces further questioning, too. The players rejoined their teammates in training on Tuesday, but the case is now in the hands of an investigating magistrate, a process that could continue for at least 18 months. During that time, the authorities, and the players, will continue to try to untangle the single minute on a dark street that changed both of their lives.A Team DinnerLe Chalet des Iles in the Bois de Boulogne, on the outskirts of Paris, where Hamraoui, Diallo and their P.S.G. teammates gathered for a dinner on the night of the attack. James Hill for The New York TimesTo those present there was nothing special about the dinner at an upscale restaurant set on an island in one of Paris’s biggest parks in the first week of November.The players had been brought together by their club to break bread, an effort to maintain the cohesion that helped them start the season undefeated, and to steel them for the challenges ahead.Diallo agreed to pick up Hamraoui and another player, Sakina Karchaoui, after the club asked the players to car pool because of limited parking at the restaurant. The three players, who lived near one another in the northwest suburbs of Paris, had grown close since joining the club over the summer: Hamraoui from Barcelona, Karchaoui from Lyon and Diallo from a brief loan at Atlético Madrid. But Diallo and Hamraoui, teammates from a previous stint at P.S.G. and camps with France’s national team, were particularly friendly; they had even vacationed together.After dinner, around 10:30 p.m., the three women returned to Diallo’s car, a club-issued Toyota Corolla, for the drive home. Hamraoui jumped into the front passenger seat, Diallo plugged Karchaoui’s address into a navigation app, and they set off.After dropping off Karchaoui, and with parked cars narrowing the roadway, Diallo was still pulling away tentatively when two men, their faces covered by masks, emerged from behind a van. They thumped on the car’s hood, demanding that it stop, and screamed to Diallo and Hamraoui to “open the door.”The assailants moved quickly. One opened the driver’s door and pinned Diallo against the steering wheel. The other yanked Hamraoui from the passenger seat.“The man on my side grabbed me and pulled me from the vehicle,” Hamraoui later told the police, according to details of her statements published by the French news media. “Before he did that, he pulled a rectangular iron bar that he had hidden in his pants or underneath his sweater. He hit me from the very first moments of the attack to force me out.”Hamraoui’s injuries included cuts and deep bruising around her knees.Courtesy Harir AvocatsShe told the police her assailant paid particular attention to her legs.Hamraoui said she fell into the road. “My attacker hit me with an iron bar several times,” she said. “I saw that he was targeting my legs, and I tried to protect myself with my hands.”Hamraoui said she recalled hearing one of the men yell something about a married man. Diallo would later tell the police she heard a full sentence: “So like that, you touch married men?” Diallo also told the police that she had heard sexually charged insults above the agonizing screams of Hamraoui as the attacker’s blows rained down.The attack lasted less than a minute before the assailants fled. Hamraoui, blood streaming from a wound on her hand, slumped back into the car. She and Diallo immediately called Karchaoui, whose home was less than 100 meters behind them, to tell her what had happened and to ask her to join them at the car. Then they set off for a nearby emergency room.The AftermathThe emergency entrance of the hospital in Poissy, where Hamraoui was treated for her injuries hours after she was assaulted.James Hill for The New York TimesAs Diallo drove, the players alerted their team. P.S.G.’s deputy head of security, Frédéric Doué arrived at the hospital with Bernard Mendy, an assistant coach on the women’s team. A friend of Hamraoui’s soon appeared there as well.With Hamraoui’s wounds treated but the assailants unidentified, the club officials told the women that under no circumstances were they to return to their homes. Instead, the team arranged for them to spend the night at a Holiday Inn close to the team’s training base about 10 miles west of central Paris.The hotel was familiar to all three women; they had spent weeks there after their moves to P.S.G. last summer. Karchaoui and Hamraoui shared a room. Diallo took one nearby. Hamraoui’s friend also spent the night.In the hotel, the women discussed who might have been behind the attack. Hamraoui was adamant from the start that someone at the club was involved, according to people familiar with the conversations. The players also discussed a strange episode from a couple of weeks earlier, when a number of their teammates had received anonymous calls from a man speaking ill of Hamraoui. But as they continued to talk through the night, Hamraoui also alighted on other potential suspects, at one point raising the name of the husband of a fourth P.S.G. teammate, who acts as the agent for yet another French star on the team.The next morning, after a few hours of fitful, fretful sleep, the women went through the events again. As they talked, Hamraoui received a phone call. It was Eric Abidal, a former French national team player whom she had come to know at Barcelona, where she played for three seasons when he served as the club’s technical director.Eric Abidal, a two-time winner of the Champions League with Barcelona who played in two World Cups for France, remains a popular figure in his home country.Albert Gea/ReutersHamraoui asked Abidal if his wife might want to hurt her, before telling him that she had been assaulted. With the phone set to loudspeaker, the people in the room could hear his response: He sounded stunned. A few more words were exchanged and the call ended.Karchaoui and Diallo soon left together to have breakfast at the club’s training facility in Bougival, where they practiced before meeting with members of the club’s management to relay the details of the attack. (Hamraoui did not accompany them; she was taken for more treatment of her injuries.) Later, the players and several teammates, those who received the anonymous calls, went to the police station to provide more statements.The club, uneasy about an attack on one of its players, assigned members of its security staff to watch over the homes of Diallo, Hamraoui and Karchaoui in the days that followed, but news of the assault stayed within the club.Inside the team, though, tensions were mounting. The French national team striker Kadidiatou Diani, angry that Hamraoui had mentioned her husband as a possible suspect — he has not been implicated or even questioned by the police — confronted her teammate as Hamraoui worked out on a bicycle.On Nov. 9, less than a week after the attack, Diallo started in Hamraoui’s place in a Champions League game against Real Madrid. Karchaoui played, too. Nothing seemed amiss, beyond Hamraoui’s absence, which was explained away by the club as being for “personal reasons.” P.S.G. collected another victory. It had still not allowed a goal all season.That night, as she does after most games, Diallo stayed up late, the adrenaline of having played keeping her up until about 3 a.m. She had barely slept, according to people close to her, when a few hours later she was awakened by banging at her front door. Opening it, she was confronted by four police officers.36 HoursThe central police station in Versailles, where Diallo was detained for about 36 hours.James Hill for The New York TimesPolitely but firmly, an officer told Diallo that she was to accompany them to the police station. Other officers searched her home and collected items, including at least two cellphones and a laptop computer. At the police station, Diallo declined an offer to have a lawyer present during questioning.From the moment the police started asking her questions, Diallo realized Hamraoui had named her as a suspect. The police suggested Diallo had taken a different route home after dinner than the one she had first suggested. They questioned her about why she had been driving so slowly after she pulled away from Karchaoui’s home. And then they presented her with the theory, later published by a French newspaper while she was still in custody, that the assault might have been rooted in her desire to acquire Hamraoui’s midfield spot in the first team.It was that claim that vaulted the story into the global news cycle, and prompted the comparisons with the infamous 1994 assault on the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.The police concentrated on the same series of questions during repeated rounds of questioning with Diallo, mainly focusing on the car journey and her actions during the assault. But they also asked her about her connection to a man imprisoned in Lyon for unrelated crimes, including extortion. The man, known as Ja Ja, was familiar to several female soccer players, Diallo told the police, including Hamraoui. He, too, was being questioned about the attack, the police later confirmed.And after at first keeping it to herself, Diallo revealed to her questioners that she had heard one of the assailants accuse Hamraoui of sleeping with a married man. (By the end of her fifth interview, the police had learned that the chip in Hamraoui’s cellphone was registered in Abidal’s name; Hamraoui had told them only that it was linked to an ex-boyfriend.)By then, Diallo told friends, she had noticed a softening in the police’s questioning. Still, they said she would have to spend the night in her cell because the next day she would be required to participate in a “confrontation” with Hamraoui — a feature in French criminal investigations in which suspects and witnesses are presented with versions of events at the same time and allowed to respond.To make her stay more comfortable, the police allowed Diallo, a Muslim, to order her own dinner through a food delivery app. She chose a halal chicken sandwich.A Murky FutureThe facility in Bougival where the P.S.G. women’s team trains. Recently, Hamraoui has arrived for her workouts accompanied by a bodyguard.James Hill for The New York TimesIt was late in the afternoon the next day when Diallo finally came face to face with Hamraoui. She later told friends and relatives that she found it “bizarre” to hear the accusation being leveled at her: that Hamraoui had heard from other teammates that Diallo was behind the attack. Diallo denied the charge. The meeting lasted about an hour. When it ended, Diallo was allowed to leave.At the entrance to the police station, she was picked up by a friend. As she was driven home, the scale of her unwanted celebrity quickly became clear in the hundreds of text messages she had received from friends and family and others.That evening she hired a lawyer, Mourad Battikh, to represent her. The next day, P.S.G.’s general manager, Ulrich Ramé, accompanied by a doctor, met with Diallo at her home. They urged her to spend time with her family, to recover. Diallo insisted she was ready to return to training, that all she wanted to do was play again. The team quickly made it clear that would not be possible initially.With a break in P.S.G.’s schedule, Diallo eventually made a trip to Grenoble to visit her family, parts of which had learned of the attack, and her arrest, through news media reports.A cousin, Abou Dieng, told The Times that all Diallo wanted to do was return to the field for P.S.G., the team she had always dreamed of representing. “We don’t even speak about Hamraoui,” he said. “We speak just about football and a return to the training ground.”After returning to Paris, Diallo trained alone. So did Hamraoui, with the club scheduling their workouts at different times and taking pains to ensure they were never at the training facility at the same time (not always successfully). Their purgatory began to end on Monday, when they trained together for the first time since the attack after France’s players’ union intervened. They rejoined their teammates on Tuesday, but a club official said both would be held back from a midweek trip to Ukraine for a Champions League game.Neither Diallo nor Hamraoui has said anything publicly about the attack or its aftermath. But a few days after Diallo’s release from detention, Battikh appeared on French television and described his client’s arrest as “defamatory, scandalous and incoherent.” A few hours later, Hamraoui’s lawyer, Said Harir, took to the airwaves brandishing images that showed in graphic detail the injuries his client had sustained.P.S.G., which declined to comment for this article, has said little amid twisting plotlines in the case, which now appear to include the demise of Abidal’s marriage. A lawyer representing his wife, Hayet, said she had filed for divorce, and released a statement on Nov. 18 in which Hayet Abidal claimed her husband had admitted to an extramarital affair with Hamraoui. Eric Abidal later took to Instagram to plead with his wife for forgiveness.Hayet Abidal has denied any involvement in the attack. But Maryvonne Caillebotte, the prosecutor first responsible for the case, told Le Monde last month that Abidal “would be heard soon” and did not exclude the possibility that his wife would be questioned, too.Battikh, Diallo’s lawyer, remains furious at how Diallo was treated by the police. “When it’s Aminata they show their muscles and they place her in detention,” Battikh said. “When it’s Eric Abidal — someone strong, famous, popular — they take their time, go slowly, ensure they don’t make a mistake.”Mourad Battikh, the lawyer of Aminata Diallo, in his office in Paris.James Hill for The New York TimesThe lawyer Said Harir was hired to represent Kheira Hamraoui.James Hill for The New York TimesThe P.S.G. women’s team remains convulsed by the crisis. Its first game after the news broke was a 6-1 thrashing by its main title rival, Lyon, that damaged its hopes of retaining the French championship. Since then, a few of Hamraoui’s teammates have asked to move their lockers away from hers in the dressing room. Others have told club management that they will find it hard to play with her again. Several of the club’s best players just want to move on.All the while, the assailants remain at large, and no one can say where the case may lead. A premeditated attack like the one inflicted on Hamraoui carries a five-year prison sentence, according to a police spokeswoman in Versailles.Diallo wants justice, her lawyer said. She is convinced of her innocence and determined to continue her career at P.S.G., where she has only six months left on her contract. “Her reputation was damaged by all the newspapers around the world,” said Battikh, her lawyer.Hamraoui wants justice, too, and continues to believe the truth will be found inside her soccer club. She said as much in her most recent interview with the police on Nov. 29; the investigators, according to a person familiar with her appearance, asked her again about Diallo’s actions on the drive home, and the route she took.In his office in an upscale district close to the Champs-Élysées, Hamraoui’s lawyer, Harir, said the focus must remain on finding out who was behind the attack. “We expect they will charge the guilty people quickly,” he said.“What she wants today,” he added of Hamraoui, “is that her private life is respected, that her status as a victim is respected.”Romain Molina More

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      Qui a commandité l'agression d'une footballeuse du PSG?

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      L’agression de la footballeuse du PSG a choqué les esprits: attaquants masqués, barre métallique, sa coéquipière Aminata Diallo arrêtée. Ces dernières semaines, de nouveaux éléments sont venus bouleverser la première version de l’histoire.VERSAILLES — La nuit est déjà tombée quand Aminata Diallo franchit le fronton de béton de l’Hôtel de Police pour quitter le bâtiment. 36 heures plus tôt, des agents de police ont frappé à la porte de son appartement, l’ont tirée de son sommeil, et l’ont emmenée en garde à vue.Enfin libérée, Aminata Diallo, milieu de terrain de l’équipe féminine du PSG, fait défiler les centaines de messages qu’elle a reçus. Elle tombe des nues. Inconnue quelques jours plus tôt en dehors du petit monde du football féminin français, son nom fait la Une des journaux aux quatre coins de la planète.Selon la presse, Aminata Diallo est celle qui, un mois plus tôt, conduisait la voiture depuis laquelle une de ses coéquipières avait été tirée du siège passager et agressée par un homme masqué. Toujours selon la presse, elle-même s’en était sortie indemne, alors que sa coéquipière et amie Kheira Hamraoui avait été frappée à coups de barre métallique. Aminata Diallo est donc celle qu’on a interrogée, non pas comme témoin, mais comme suspecte de ce qui, selon la police, pouvait être un coup monté.Avec ses relents de jalousie sportive, sa ressemblance avec l’affaire Tonya Harding et ses liens avec le PSG (champion de France en titre et l’un des clubs de foot les plus riches au monde), l’affaire a rapidement fait le tour de la planète.Mais plus on en apprend — sur une histoire d’infidélité conjugale, sur des accusations à l’encontre d’autres joueuses de l’équipe, et sur des coups de fil à d’autres joueuses médisant sur la victime avant l’agression — plus la première version de l’histoire est remise en cause.Aujourd’hui, plus personne ne sait qui croire. Ni quoi.Un dossier en suspensAminata Diallo, convaincue que sa garde à vue était une erreur de la police, a refusé de se faire assister d’un avocat lors de ses interrogatoires.Loic Baratoux/Abaca/Sipa USA, via AP ImagesPlus de trois semaines se sont écoulées depuis qu’Aminata Diallo, 26 ans, quittait le commissariat de Versailles après deux jours d’interrogatoires et une nuit passée dans une cellule minuscule et nauséabonde. L’enquête se poursuit, mais la police semble loin de comprendre qui, ou quoi, est derrière cette agression qui a eu lieu le 4 novembre. dans une rue sombre de Chatou, en banlieue parisienne.Certains faits sont indiscutables. Kheira Hamraoui, 31 ans, a été victime d’un grave délit. Aminata Diallo a été interrogée puis relâchée. Aucun des agresseurs n’a été identifié. Aucune arme n’a été retrouvée. Et personne n’a été accusé du crime.Mais en enquêtant sur les semaines tumultueuses qui ont suivi l’agression, le New York Times a aussi découvert que Kheira Hamraoui a plusieurs fois laissé entendre que d’autres personnes en lien avec le club, (dont au moins deux co-équipières) seraient impliquées dans l’affaire; qu’alors que le PSG faisait s’entraîner Aminata Diallo et Kheira Hamraoui chacune de son côté, et séparément de leur équipe, depuis des semaines, une erreur de calendrier les a amenées à se croiser et à échanger des noms d’oiseau; enfin, il a découvert que la police a relâché Aminata Diallo sans déposer de plainte, mais a refusé de l’innocenter et de lui rendre ses deux téléphones et son ordinateur portable.En attendant, les dommages collatéraux s’accumulent. Diallo et Hamraoui voient leurs noms salis et leur carrières bouleversées. La cohésion dans les vestiaires du PSG en souffre, compromettant les ambitions de victoire d’une des meilleures équipes d’Europe. Et le mariage d’une légende du football français impliqué dans l’affaire en a pris un coup : sa femme a annoncé dans un communiqué qu’elle demandait le divorce après qu’il lui a avoué avoir eu une liaison avec Kheira Hamraoui, selon son avocat.Kheira Hamraoui en août dernier. Elle et Diallo ont passée des vacances ensemble et étaient coéquipières au sein du club du Paris Saint-Germain et de l’équipe nationale.  Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesLe New York Times a recueilli des informations sur l’agression et ses suite en interviewant une douzaine de personnes en contact direct avec les principaux protagonistes et ayant connaissance de l’agression et des évènements des jours qui l’ont suivie, dont des amis, des membres de leurs familles et des associés des joueuses, leurs avocats, des membres du PSG et de la police.Parmi les personnes interviewées, beaucoup tendent à réfuter les soupçons de jalousie et de trahison. La plupart n’ont accepté de parler qu’à condition que leur nom se soit pas cité, jugeant l’affaire trop sensible.Telle qu’elle se présente aujourd’hui, la situation est toujours aussi compliquée : Kheira Hamraoui a revu la police la semaine dernière, et il y a de fortes chances qu’Aminata Diallo soit elle aussi interrogée à nouveau. Les joueuses doivent reprendre l’entraînement avec leurs coéquipières mardi, mais l’affaire est désormais entre les mains d’un juge d’instruction pour une procédure qui pourrait durer au moins 18 mois. Pendant ce temps-là, les autorités et les joueuses continueront d’essayer d’élucider les dessous de cette petite minute qui, dans une rue peu éclairée, a fait basculer leurs vies.Un dîner d’équipeC’est au Chalet des Iles dans le Bois de Boulogne, aux abords de Paris, qu’Hamraoui, Diallo et leurs coéquipières du PSG ont dîné le soir de l’agression.James Hill pour The New York TimesPour les convives, ce dîner dans un restaurant chic situé sur une île dans un des plus grands parcs de Paris n’avait pourtant rien de particulier.C’était au début du mois de novembre, le club avait réuni les joueuses autour d’un bon repas pour entretenir cette cohésion qui leur avait permis de débuter la saison sans essuyer la moindre défaite, et pour les préparer aux prochaines épreuves.Aminata Diallo avait accepté de prendre Kheira Hamraoui et une autre joueuse, Sakina Karchaoui, dans sa voiture. Le restaurant ayant peu de places de parking, le club leur avait demandé de faire du co-voiturage. Les trois joueuses, qui habitent non loin les unes des autres dans une banlieue nord-ouest de Paris, s’étaient rapprochées depuis qu’elles avaient rejoint le PSG l’été précédent : Kheira Hamraoui venait de Barcelone, Sakina Karchaoui de Lyon, et Aminata Diallo avait été temporairement “prêtée” à l’Atletico de Madrid. Diallo et Hamraoui, déjà coéquipières à l’occasion d’un précédent passage au PSG et de stages avec l’équipe nationale étaient particulièrement proches. Elles avaient même passé des vacances ensemble.Après le dîner, vers 22h30, les trois jeunes femmes reprennent la voiture de Diallo, une Toyota Corolla fournie par le club. Hamraoui s’installe sur le siège passager, Diallo entre l’adresse de Karchaoui dans son GPS et elles prennent la route.Après avoir déposé Karchaoui dans une rue rendue étroite par le grand nombre de voitures garées tout au long, Diallo redémarre doucement lorsque deux hommes masqués surgissent de derrière une camionnette. Ils tapent sur le capot de la voiture pour la faire stopper et hurlent à l’attention de Diallo et d’Hamraoui :“Ouvre la porte!”Les agresseurs agissent très vite. Le premier ouvre la portière côté conducteur et plaque Aminata Diallo contre le volant. Le second arrache Kheira Hamraoui du siège passager.“Celui qui était de mon côté s’est saisi de moi et m’a extirpée du véhicule,” a déclaré Kheira Hamraoui à la police (d’après les extraits de ses déclarations publiés par la presse française). “Avant, il s’est emparé d’une barre de fer rectangulaire qu’il avait cachée dans son pantalon ou sous son pull. Il m’a donné un coup dès les premiers instants de l’agression pour m’obliger à sortir de l’habitacle.”Les blessures de Hamraoui étaient des coupures et d’importants hématomes au niveau des genous.Courtesy Harir AvocatsElle a déclaré à la police que l’agresseur visait essentiellement ses jambes.Kheira Hamraoui dit qu’elle est tombée sur la chaussée : “J’ai vu qu’il visait essentiellement mes jambes, et moi, j’essayais de me protéger avec mes mains.”Elle se souvient aussi avoir entendu un des inconnus crier quelque chose à propos d’un homme marié. Plus tard, Aminata Diallo dira à la police avoir entendu la phrase: “Alors comme ça, on couche avec des hommes mariés ?” Elle dira aussi avoir entendu des insultes à connotation sexuelle au travers des hurlements de Kheira Hamraoui , sur laquelle pleuvaient les coups.L’agression dure moins d’une minute avant que les agresseurs ne prennent la fuite. Hamraoui rentre et s’affalle dans la voiture, une main en sang. Les deux femmes appellent immédiatement Sakina Karchaoui, dont le domicile est à moins de 100 mètres, pour lui raconter ce qui s’est passé et lui demander de les rejoindre. Elles filent ensuite aux urgences les plus proches.Les suitesLes urgences de l’hôpital de Poissy, où Hamaraoui  s’est rendue pour faire soigner ses blessures quelques heures après l’agression.James Hill pour The New York TimesPendant le trajet, Diallo au volant, les joueuses préviennent le club de ce qui vient de se passer. Le directeur-adjoint de la sécurité du PSG, Frédéric Doué, arrive aux urgences avec Bernard Mendy, entraîneur adjoint de l’équipe féminine. Peu après, une amie de Kheira Hamraoui les rejoint aussi.Une fois les blessures de Hamraoui soignées, les agresseurs n’ayant pas été identifiés, les responsables du club interdisent aux joueuses de rentrer chez elles. L’équipe s’est arrangée pour qu’elles passent la nuit dans un Holiday Inn proche de leur terrain d’entraînement, à une quinzaine de kilomètres à l’ouest de Paris.Les trois jeunes femmes connaissent cet hôtel car elle ont y logé quelques semaines après leur transfert au PSG l’été précédent. Sakina Karchaoui et Kheira Hamraoui prennent une chambre à deux. Aminata Diallo s’installe dans une chambre voisine. L’amie de Kheira Hamraoui , elle aussi, passe la nuit à l’hôtel.Sur place, les jeunes femmes essaient de comprendre qui peut bien être à l’origine de l’agression. D’après plusieurs personnes au courant de leur conversation, Kheira Hamraoui est catégorique dès le départ : un membre du club est forcément impliqué. Les joueuses évoquent aussi un épisode étrange qui a eu lieu quelques semaines plus tôt : plusieurs de leurs coéquipières avaient reçu des appels anonymes d’un homme qui disait du mal de Hamraoui. Mais plus tard cette nuit-là, Kheira Hamraoui évoque aussi d’autres suspects, citant notamment le mari d’une quatrième joueuse du PSG, qui se trouve être aussi l’agent d’une autre star française de l’équipe.Le lendemain matin, après une nuit brève et agitée, les jeunes femmes reprennent leurs discussions. Pendant qu’elles parlent, le téléphone de Kheira Hamraoui sonne. C’est Éric Abidal, un ancien joueur de l’équipe nationale française qu’elle a connu au FC Barcelone, le club où elle a joué pednant trois saisons et dont il était alors le directeur technique.Eric Abidal, deux fois vainqueur de la Champions League à Barcelone et deux fois sélectionné dans l’équipe nationale pour la Coupe du Monde, demeure une populaire dans son pays natal. Albert Gea/ReutersKheira Hamraoui demande à Éric Abidal si sa femme pourrait vouloir lui faire du mal, puis lui annonce qu’elle s’est fait agresser. Le téléphone étant sur haut-parleur, tous ceux dans la pièce entendent sa reaction: il semble abasourdi. Ils échangent encore quelques mots, puis l’appel prend fin.Peu après, Sakira Karchaoui et Aminata Diallo partent petit-déjeuner au camp du club, à Bougival. Elles s’entraînent puis rencontrent des membres de la direction pour leur raconter les détails de l’agression. (Kheira Hamraoui ne les accompagnait pas ; elle était retournée faire soigner ses blessures). Plus tard, les joueuses, ainsi que les coéquipières qui avaient reçu les appels anonymes, sont allées faire de nouvelles déclarations à la police.Inquiet de voir qu’on s’en était pris à une de ses joueuses, le club désigne des agents de sécurité pour surveiller les domiciles des trois joueuses pendant quelques jours, mais ne divulgue pas la nouvelle de l’incident.Au sein de l’équipe, pourtant, la tension monte. L’attaquante de l’équipe nationale Kadidiatou Diani, qui en veut à Kheira Hamraoui d’avoir cité son mari parmi les éventuels suspects — il n’a pas été inquiété, ni même interrogé par la police — la prend à partie alors qu’elle s’entraîne sur un vélo en salle.Le 9 novembre, moins d’une semaine après l’agression, Aminata Diallo débutait le match de Ligue des Champions contre le Real Madrid à la place de Kheira Hamraoui. Sakira Karchaoui était aussi de la partie. Tout semblait normal, excepté l’absence de Kheira Hamraoui que le club justifia pour “raisons personnelles”. Encore une victoire pour le PSG. Et toujours aucun but encaissé depuis le début de la saison.Ce soir-là, comme souvent après les matchs, Aminata Diallo se couche tard. L’adrénaline la tient éveillée jusqu’à 3 heures du matin. Elle vient de fermer l’œil, selon ses proches, quand des coups frappés à sa porte d’entrée la tirent de son sommeil. Elle ouvre et se retrouve face à quatre officiers de police.36 heuresL’hôtel de police de Versailles, où Diallo est restée environ 36 heures en garde à vue.James Hill pour The New York TimesPoliment mais fermement, l’un d’eux demande à Aminata Diallo de les suivre au commissariat. Ses collègues fouillent le domicile et emportent plusieurs objets, dont au moins deux téléphones et un ordinateur portable. Arrivée au commissariat, Diallo refuse une offre d’être assistée par un avocat pendant son interrogatoire.Dès le début de l’interrogatoire, Aminata Diallo comprend que Kheira Hamraoui l’a désignée comme suspecte. Les policiers sous-entendaient qu’au retour du dîner, elle avait pris une autre route que celle qu’elle avait indiquée au départ. Ils lui demandaient pourquoi elle conduisait si lentement après avoir déposé Sakira Karchaoui. Ils lui ont ensuite soumis l’hypothèse suivante, publiée très vite dans un journal français alors que Diallo est encore en garde à vue : l’agression aurait été motivée par son désir d’être titularisée au poste de milieu de terrain, occupé par Hamraoui, dans l’équipe première.C’est cette hypothèse qui a catapulté l’histoire de l’agression dans les médias internationaux et suscité des comparaisons avec la tristement célèbre agression de la patineuse Nancy Kerrigan en 1994.La police procède à plusieurs interrogations d’Aminata Diallo, revenant à chaque reprise sur une même série de questions sur le trajet en voiture et sur ce qu’elle-même faisait pendant l’agression. Les policiers l’interroge aussi sur ses liens avec un homme emprisonné à Lyon pour des délits (notamment des extorsions) sans rapport avec l’agression. Connu sous le nom de Ja Ja, cet homme compte plusieurs footballeuses parmi ses connaissances, explique Diallo à la police, dont Kheira Hamraoui. La police a confirmé par la suite que lui aussi avait été interrogé au sujet de l’agression.Après l’avoir gardé pour elle, Aminata Diallo finit par révéler à ses interrogateurs qu’elle avait entendu un des agresseurs accuser Kheira Hamraoui de coucher avec un homme marié. (Au bout du cinquième interrogatoire de Diallo, la police a appris que la carte SIM du téléphone portable de Kheira Hamraoui est enregistrée au nom d’Eric Abidal; jusque là, cette dernière leur avait simplement dit que cette carte était liée à un ancien petit ami.)Aminata Diallo a raconté à des amis qu’à partir de ce moment-là, l’interrogatoire s’est adouci. Les officiers lui disent tout de même qu’elle devra passer la nuit au poste afin, dès le lendemain, qu’elle puisse prendre part à une “confrontation” avec Kheira Hamraoui – la confrontation, propre aux enquêtes françaises, consiste à réunir les suspects et les témoins pour que chacun expose sa version des faits.En guise de réconfort, la police autorise Aminata Diallo, qui est musulmane, à commander son dîner via une application de livraison. Elle choisit un sandwich au poulet halal.Un avenir incertainÀ Bougival, le centre où s’entraîne l’équipe féminine du PSG. Depuis peu, Hamraoui se rend aux entraînements accompagnée d’un garde du corps. James Hill pour The New York TimesLe lendemain, en fin d’après-midi, Aminata Diallo s’est donc retrouvée donc face à Kheira Hamraoui. Plus tard elle a dit à ses proches qu’elle avait trouvé “bizarre” de découvrir ce dont on l’accusait, à savoir que Kheira Hamraoui aurait entendu dire par des coéquipières que Diallo était derrière l’agression. Celle-ci a nié l’accusation. La confrontation a duré environ une heure. À la fin, Diallo a été autorisée à partir.Une amie d’Aminata Diallo est venue la chercher à la sortie de l’hôtel de police. Pendant le trajet, alors qu’on la reconduisait chez elle, Diallo a très vite réalisé l’ampleur qu’avait pris l’affaire — et sa notoriété bien malgré elle — à la lecture des centaines de SMS d’amis, de sa famille et d’autres.Le soir même, elle engageait un avocat, Mourad Battikh, pour la représenter. Le lendemain, le manager du PSG, Ulrich Ramé, lui a rendu visite chez elle accompagné d’un médecin. Ils l’ont encouragée à passer du temps avec ses proches pour se remettre. Elle insistait au contraire pour reprendre l’entraînement. Tout ce qu’elle désirait, c’était de retourner sur le terrain. Le club lui a fait comprendre que ce n’était pas possible, du moins dans un premier temps.Comme il y avait une pause dans le programme du PSG, Diallo en a profité pour aller à Grenoble voir sa famille, dont certains avaient appris l’agression et son arrestation dans les médias.Abou Dieng, un cousin, a confirmé au New York Times qu’elle espérait recommencer à jouer pour le PSG, l’équipe qu’elle a toujours rêvé de représenter : “On ne parle même pas de Kheira Hamraoui. On ne parle que de foot et de son retour aux entraînements.”De retour à Paris, Aminata Diallo a repris seule les entraînements. De même pour Kheira Hamraoui, le club s’appliquant à programmer leurs séances d’entraînement à des heures différentes et veillant à ce qu’elles ne se retrouvent jamais sur le terrain au même moment (sans toujours y parvenir). Leur purgatoire a commencé à prendre fin lundi, quand elles se sont entraînées ensemble pour la première fois depuis l’agression, après l’intervention du syndicat des joueurs français. Mardi, elles ont rejoint leurs coéquipières, mais un responsable du club leur a annoncé qu’elles ne les accompagneraient pas en Ukraine en milieu de semaine pour un match de Ligue des Champions.Ni l’une ni l’autre ne s’est exprimée publiquement sur l’agression, ni sur ses suites. Mais quelques jours après la libération d’Aminata Diallo, son avocat Mourad Battikh a qualifié à la télévision son arrestation d’ “infamante, scandaleuse et incohérente”. Quelques heures plus tard, c’est l’avocat de Kheira Hamraoui, Saïd Harir, qui réagissait à l’antenne en montrant des photos des blessures infligées à sa cliente.Le PSG, qui a refusé de répondre à nos questions, reste discret sur les rebondissements d’une affaire qui semble désormais également signer la fin du mariage d’Éric Abidal. L’avocat de son épouse Hayet a annoncé que sa cliente demande le divorce. Le 18 novembre, il a publié un communiqué dans lequel Hayet Abidal affirme que son mari reconnaît avoir eu une liaison avec Kheira Hamraoui. Plus tard sur Instagram, Eric Abidal a demandé à sa femme de lui pardonner.Hayet Abidal a nié toute implication dans l’agression. Mais Maryvonne Caillebotte, la procureure chargée du dossier, a déclaré le 15 novembre au journal Le Monde qu’Éric Abidal “sera entendu prochainement”. Une audition de son épouse n’est pas non plus exclue.Mourad Battikh, l’avocat de Diallo, ne décolère pas sur la façon dont sa cliente a été traitée par la police. “Quand c’est Aminata, ils montrent leurs muscles et ils la mettent en garde à vue”, s’indigne-t-il. “Quand c’est Éric Abidal, une personnalité forte, célèbre, populaire, ils prennent leur temps et procèdent lentement pour être sûrs de ne pas faire d’erreurs.”Mourad Battikh, l’avocat d’Aminata Diallo, dans son bureau à Paris.James Hill pour The New York TimesL’avocat Saïd Harir, engagé pour représenter Kheira Hamraoui.James Hill pour The New York TimesL’équipe féminine du PSG traverse une crise. Son premier match après le scandale a été une raclée (6-1) par son principal rival, Lyon, qui compromet sans doute ses espoirs de conserver le titre de champion de France. Certaines coéquipières de Kheira Hamraoui ont demandé qu’on éloigne leur casier du sien dans les vestiaires. D’autres ont avoué à la direction du club qu’elles auront du mal à reprendre le jeu avec elle. Plusieurs des meilleures joueuses du club veulent simplement passer à autre chose.Pendant ce temps-là, les agresseurs sont toujours en cavale et personne ne sait où cette affaire mènera. Une attaque préméditée comme celle qu’a subie Kheira Hamraoui est passible de cinq ans de prison, selon une porte-parole de la police de Versailles.Aminata Diallo souhaite que justice soit rendue, affirme son avocat. Elle est convaincue de son innocence et déterminée à poursuivre sa carrière au PSG — son contrat prend fin dans six mois. “Sa réputation a été ternie par les journaux du monde entier,” déplore Me Battikh.Kheira Hamraoui aussi veut que justice soit faite, mais elle continue de croire que c’est au sein du club que la vérité verra le jour. Elle l’a dit lors de son dernier entretien avec la police, le 29 novembre. D’après un témoin de sa comparution, les enquêteurs l’ont réinterrogée sur le comportement d’Aminata Diallo dans la voiture et sur la route qu’elle a empruntée.Dans son bureau aux environs des Champs-Élysées, son avocat, Me Harir, affirme qu’il s’agit avant tout de découvrir qui sont les auteurs de l’agression. “On espère que les coupables seront inculpés rapidement,” confirme-t-il.Il ajoute, à propos de Kheira Hamraoui : “Ce qu’elle veut aujourd’hui, c’est que l’on respecte sa vie privée, que l’on respecte son statut de victime.”Romain Molina et Daphné Anglès ont contribué à ce reportage. More

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      Lionel Messi Wins Record Seventh Ballon d’Or

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      The Paris St.-Germain star capped a year in which he led Argentina to the Copa América title by edging Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski.Some of the most illustrious names in soccer’s long history only managed to win the Ballon d’Or, the sport’s most prestigious individual prize, once. George Best, Zinedine Zidane and Eúsebio all have just a single award to their names. Ronaldo, the great Brazilian striker, won two. Johan Cruyff, arguably the finest European player in history, has three.After Monday night, Lionel Messi has seven.Messi, 34, effectively retained the trophy he last won in 2019 — controversially, the award was not handed out by France Football last year because of the coronavirus pandemic — after a year in which he ended his long wait for an international honor, winning the Copa América with Argentina, and left Barcelona, the club where he had spent all of his career, for Paris St.-Germain.When your dad wins an other Ballon d’Or 🙌#ballondor pic.twitter.com/UWKir71mX5— Ballon d’Or #ballondor (@francefootball) November 29, 2021
      “It’s incredible to be here again,” Messi said. “Two years ago I thought it was the last time. Winning the Copa América was the key.”“I don’t know how many years I have left,” he added, “but I hope many more.”Messi finished with 613 points in the voting, only 33 more than the runner-up, Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski. In 2019, the last time the trophy was awarded, Messi beat Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk by only seven points.Barcelona may have lost Messi this year, but it still took home some hardware on Monday: Alexia Putellas, a star midfielder on its treble-winning women’s team, became the third winner of the women’s Ballon d’Or, and the teenager Pedri, a rising talent who is already a fixture for Barcelona and Spain’s national team, was honored as the world’s best player under 21.Messi, who had arrived at the gala at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in a shimmering tuxedo, a look matched by his three young sons, was typically soft-spoken in accepting his award. He praised his former teammates at Barcelona and his countrymen with Argentina, and vowed to fight for new trophies with his new club, P.S.G.Messi defeated Lewandowski in voting by 176 journalists and conducted by France Football, which awards the Ballon d’Or (almost) every year. Many experts argued Lewandowski deserved the honor in 2020, when it was not handed out because, organizers said, disruptions to the soccer calendar had made it impossible to judge. Messi said he agreed with that position.“I think you deserved to win the award last year,” Messi told Lewandowski from the stage, calling it “an honor” to stand against him for top honors in 2021.Jorginho, the Brazil-born Italy midfielder, was third in the balloting, reward for a season in which his club team, Chelsea, won the Champions League and Italy won the European Championship. Real Madrid and France striker Karim Benzema was fourth, and Jorginho’s Chelsea midfield partner, N’Golo Kanté, was fifth.Ronaldo, who finished sixth in the voting, was absent from Monday’s ceremony, but his rivalry with Messi was not. On his Instagram account, Ronaldo angrily took issue with a comment made recently by France Football’s editor in chief, Pascal Ferré, in an interview with The New York Times about the award’s prestige.“Ronaldo has only one ambition, and that is to retire with more Ballons d’Or than Messi,” Ferré said, “and I know that because he has told me.”Ronaldo — despite suggesting as much in other interviews — denied he had made the comment, saying, “Ferré lied, used my name to promote himself and to promote the publication he works for.”“It is unacceptable,” he added, “that the person responsible for awarding such a prestigious prize could lie in this way, in absolute disrespect for someone who has always respected France Football and the Ballon d’Or.”Though 2021 has hardly been a vintage year by Messi’s standards — Barcelona was beaten to the Spanish title by Atlético Madrid and eliminated from last season’s Champions League in the round of 16 — his achievement with Argentina, as well as the attention drawn by his move to France after winning six Ballons d’Or at Barcelona, was enough to convince the award’s jurors.That Messi had never won an international trophy with his national team had always been held against him in the debate over whether he warrants the status as soccer’s greatest ever player. His rivals, after all, had triumphed with their countries as well as their clubs: Pelé led Brazil to three World Cups, Diego Maradona inspired Argentina to one and Cristiano Ronaldo helped Portugal claim the European Championship in 2016.Messi finally put that idea to rest in this summer’s Copa América, breaking down in tears on the field after Ángel Di María’s goal had given Argentina its first international trophy since 1993, beating Brazil, the host, in the final.His tally of seven Ballons d’Or now puts him two clear of Ronaldo, his great rival: The Portuguese forward remains on five, but he has not won the prize since 2017, and at age 36 he is more than two years older than Messi.Putellas, the 27-year-old midfielder who is captain of Barcelona’s all-conquering women’s team, won the women’s Ballon d’Or. Her victory completed a clean sweep of last season’s prizes, after she led her Barcelona side to the Champions League title and a league and cup double in Spain, and then was honored as Europe’s player of the year.Her main rivals for the Ballon d’Or were mostly familiar faces: Barcelona had become the first women’s team to register five nominees in a single year, and two of Putellas’s teammates — Jennifer Hermoso, who was second, and Lieke Martens, who was fifth — finished in the top five in the voting.“Honestly it’s a bit emotional, and very special,” Putellas said. “It’s great to be here with all of my teammates, since we have lived and experienced so much together, especially in the past year.”“This is an individual prize,” she added, “but football is a team sport.” More

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      P.S.G.'s Aminata Diallo Arrested After Teammate Is Attacked

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      A Paris St.-Germain women’s player was taken into custody by French investigators looking into a violent assault on a teammate who shares her position.The Paris St.-Germain players, champions of France and riding high on a surge of investment in women’s soccer, were in fine spirits as they enjoyed a dinner with club officials last week in a restaurant close to one of the city’s largest parks.Months removed from the squad’s first French title, regulars in Europe’s biggest tournaments and unbeaten in the new season, the team had much to celebrate, and the mood was collegial. As the night out wound down, one of the team’s new signings, Kheira Hamraoui, accepted a ride home from her teammate Aminata Diallo. Car-pooling made sense; both women lived in Chatou, an upscale suburb on the outskirts of Paris, and soon they and a third player were in the car for the half-hour drive home.As the car approached Hamraoui’s house around 10:30 p.m., however, the journey took a menacing turn. Two masked men emerged from the darkness and dragged Hamraoui out of the passenger seat. Then, according to news media reports later confirmed by the French police, the men beat Hamraoui with a metal bar for several minutes, paying particular attention to the part of the body she most needed to play for one of Europe’s most successful women’s soccer teams: her legs.When the beating ended, the men ran off. Diallo, who had been restrained, was apparently unharmed.By Wednesday, she was a suspect in the attack.Early Wednesday morning, the French police arrested the 26-year-old Diallo at her home nearby and confirmed in a statement that her detention was related to Hamraoui’s complaint, though they did not explicitly link Diallo to the assault, and refused to comment for the record. The French sports daily L’Equipe, which first reported the arrest, suggested Diallo may have played a role in the attack on Hamraoui, her rival for playing time in the center of the P.S.G. midfield.Even before then, though, the attack had been the talk of training facilities across Europe, where multimillion-dollar investments in women’s soccer have raised the profile of the sport, its best players and its biggest clubs. That has raised the stakes for players who now see the sport as a viable profession and a potential route to riches for the very best performers through six-figure annual contracts and growing sponsorship opportunities.Hamraoui at a P.S.G. training session in September. She missed a Champions League game on Tuesday because of injuries sustained in last week’s attack. Aurelien Meunier – PSG/PSG via Getty ImagesWhile the club hired additional security for Hamraoui’s worried teammates, the police investigation quietly gathered pace. On Wednesday, the arrest of Diallo shook everyone anew.“Paris St.-Germain is working with the Versailles police to clarify the facts,” the team said in a statement. “The club is paying close attention to the progress of the proceedings and will study what action to take.”Noël Le Graët, the president of the French soccer federation, expressed shock at the arrest of Diallo, who like Hamraoui has played for France’s national team. Diallo was in camp with the team as recently as last month, for a set of World Cup qualifiers. Hamraoui, a veteran of the 2015 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, last played for France in 2019, but her career had been revived by a Champions League title with Barcelona last season and an off-season move to P.S.G.“What is suspected is implausible,” Le Graët said. “I know both players. I am appalled if what is mentioned is true. It seems unimaginable.”The incident and the accusations of personal rivalry and professional jealousy immediately evoked memories of the 1994 assault on the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, who was attacked at that year’s United States championships in a plot orchestrated by the ex-husband of a rival skater, Tonya Harding. Kerrigan was assaulted after a practice session by a man who hit her repeatedly in the legs with a police baton.After Kerrigan was forced to withdraw from the championships because of her injuries, Harding won the competition and earned a place on the 1994 U.S. Olympic team. Kerrigan was later named to the team as well, and several weeks later she won the silver medal at the Lillehammer Games. Harding, who has long denied being involved in the attack but pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution, finished eighth.The scandal was revived in 2017 with the release of a fictionalized biopic, “I, Tonya.”P.S.G., backed by the deep pockets of its Qatari owners, said Wednesday that it was continuing to provide its players with added security in the days since the attack, an extra layer of protection that it regularly arranges for its well-known men’s players. Several P.S.G. players have in recent years had their homes robbed — sometimes while family members were inside — while they were away playing matches.“Since Thursday evening the club has taken all necessary measures to guarantee the health, well-being and safety of its entire women’s team,” the P.S.G. statement added.For many in women’s soccer, though, the Hamraoui incident was hard to comprehend. The motivation did not appear to be robbery — the assailants had taken nothing from either of the women, the police said — but rather a single-minded effort to injure a player.Competition for places in the team’s lineup has increased this season after the women’s team finally ended the dominance of its league and continental rival Lyon by winning its first French title. P.S.G. had finished second to Lyon eight times in the previous 10 years. With a domestic title in hand, the team now has a European club title firmly in its sights.Signing Hamraoui, 31, from the European champion Barcelona for her second stint with the club was part of P.S.G.’s efforts to strengthen its team, and to defend its sudden primacy in its ongoing domestic rivalry with Lyon. Both teams have started the new campaign as strong as ever, with each having won its first seven games. P.S.G. has yet to surrender a goal in domestic or European competition.Diallo also returned to Paris this season, after a loan to Atlético Madrid, but has effectively been used as Hamraoui’s understudy. That changed this week when Hamraoui, badly shaken and nursing cuts and bruises — but no broken bones — was unable to play in a Champions League game against Real Madrid.At the time, the club explained her absence as a personal issue. Her replacement in the lineup on Tuesday? Diallo. More

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      For Mediapro and French Soccer, a Crisis With Many Fathers

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      When Jaume Roures and Mediapro walked away from a billion-dollar TV contract, Ligue 1 teams felt the squeeze. But he says they have a bigger problem.Sitting alone on a long table inside a committee room deep inside France’s national assembly, the Spanish businessman tried to explain why things had gone wrong, so very wrong.The businessman, Jaume Roures, the founder of a sprawling media company, was the latest figure — and perhaps the most significant — to be quizzed by lawmakers looking to understand why professional soccer in France had been brought to the edge of economic catastrophe by the collapse of a broadcasting contract. The deal, hailed as a financial game-changer when it was signed in 2018, was sold as one that would drastically shift the prospects of France’s top teams, moving them closer to their rivals in Spain and Italy, and perhaps even those in England’s Premier League, the world’s dominant domestic championship.Instead, the $1 billion contract with Mediapro, Roures’s Chinese-backed company, collapsed shortly after it had come into force in 2020. Roures suspended payments, calling for a renegotiation in light of the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The league disagreed, and Roures, unable to agree to new terms, pulled the plug and left France, a country where he once sought sanctuary after fighting against the dictatorship in his native Spain.The impact of the failure — for Roures and his company, for club executives and for French soccer — continues to be felt.Clubs that not so long ago were consumed by giddy thoughts of being able to compete with some of Europe’s best are now consumed with darker worries about how they are going to survive. Clubs offloaded young stars and reliable veterans in the summer transfer market where they could, sometimes for fees below market value as the market itself cratered, to cover for gaps on troubled balance sheets. And an auction this year to select Mediapro’s replacement as the league’s broadcaster ended with Amazon agreeing to pay less than a third of what Roures and Mediapro had once promised.At his hearing in September, the bald and bespectacled Roures looked more like a college professor than a media mogul. Looking down at a sheaf of papers laid out in front of him in Room 6242 of the Palais Bourbon, he began by delivering a meandering soliloquy in Spanish-accented French that touched upon several factors for why, in his view, things unraveled so spectacularly. He was still speaking in a monotone when one of the lawmakers, Cédric Roussel, intervened.“You give the impression that it was everybody else’s fault except Mediapro’s,” Roussel, sitting on a raised dais he shared with other members of the committee, said.Many in France remain furious over Roures’s exit, over how he shuttered a new channel set up to broadcast games, over how he could walk away from his commitments while paying only 100 million euros in compensation and over how his businesses have started to rebound from the pandemic while the futures of French clubs remain shrouded in doubt and uncertainty. “We could have a delayed catastrophe,” said Pierre Maes, a consultant and the author of “Le Business des Droits TV du Foot,” a book on the soccer rights market.Midfielder Eduardo Camavinga was one of the best prospects to leave Ligue 1 over the summer.Jean-Francois Monier/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCamavinga, 18, was one of France’s best young prospects at Rennes. Now he plays for Real Madrid.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRoures, in an interview with The New York Times shortly before his audience with lawmakers, doubled down on his belief that his plan would have worked had the pandemic not changed everything. For it to work, though, Mediapro’s new channel, Telefoot, would have needed to attract three million subscribers, far more than the reported 300,000 it had managed to lure by the time of its collapse.Looking back at how things unfolded, Roures says now, it was the French league that erred in not renegotiating with him. He contends that his new offer — about 580 million euros, or about $675 million — was double the amount the league managed to extract from Amazon; that the government’s failure to tackle piracy also contributed to Mediapro’s hasty exit; and that Canal Plus, France’s top pay-TV operator, tried to abuse its dominant position.That stance may explain why he was unable to negotiate his contract with the league in the fall of 2020. Roures, said a team owner who also sits on the French league’s board, “lost all credibility, and no one wanted to hear about him.”A spokesman for the league did not respond to a request for comment.Meanwhile, Roures, who rose to prominence at the turn of the century when he secured domestic rights to the Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid, lamented the price he had paid. “There has been significant reputational damage for us,” he said in the interview from Mediapro’s headquarters in Barcelona, Spain.Asked if any part of his foray into French soccer kept him up at night, he said no: “I sleep like a baby.”While in his interview Roures attempted to provide various explanations for what happened, he declined to point fingers directly at France’s clubs or its league. But he suggested his new view from the sideline offered him a glimpse of the structural problem that he suggested could leave the French league perpetually in the shadow of its rivals: Teams there, Roures said, are far too reliant on player trading to balance their books.“I would say it’s the only major European league where the role of transfers is fundamental, and that’s a major weakness,” he said. The higher television incomes he had promised, he said, would have allowed clubs, at least in theory, to keep their top stars for at least a little longer.Paris St.-Germain, which this summer added Lionel Messi, left, to a lineup that already boasted Kylian Mbappé and Neymar, is the one French club that seems impervious to economic crisis.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet even amid the crisis, and the red ink splashed across balance sheets from Lille to Marseille, the French league has suddenly found itself more marketable than at any other point in its history. That is because of the presence of Paris St.-Germain, a team largely shielded from the financial turmoil that has engulfed its domestic rivals by the wealth of its owner, the government of Qatar, and strengthened by the summer signing of Lionel Messi.But Messi mania is not likely to be as profitable for the league as much as it will be for Amazon, which secured its cut price contract before the Argentine’s arrival.His arrival in France came shortly after that, and other contracts are locked in. “Amazon has got very lucky,” Roures said. “But the international rights for the championship have been sold up until 2025, and I don’t think it’s going to represent any greater income for the French league.” More